This was our opportunity to tour Bangalore for a day and one I was very much looking forward to, to get away from the western world of 4 star hotels and offices. We started at 9 am and visited Iskon Temple, Bangalore Palace, Manri Mall (for lunch), the Parliament buildings (only viewed them) and then finished shopping on MG Road before ending at dinner at Hard Rock Cafe.

Iskon Temple is a recent (1992) Sri Radha Krishna Tmple for the faithful of a particular worship of the Hindu god Krishna. While new it is built very much like traditional Indian temples. To go into the temple you can proceed as a tourist bypassing the main path for devotees but I suggested to the group we experience this taking the devotees path and they were willing. What that involved is taking one step at a time going from one tile to the next for 108 steps and repeating the Hare Krishna mantra for each step to prepare your entry into the temple

You said this fully for each of the 108 steps. It was a good way to slow down the mind for entry into a spiritual site. Inside we visited various shrines and of course the main temple with images of Hare Krishna. There we took time to reflect with other devotes on the images and sit on the floor for personal reflection or prayer. There were opportunities to buy various texts in many languages and prayer beads, statues and such as well as food. Pretty much the whole group got one thing or another at the temple. We all had a good experience there and were glad we stopped.

Okay I have said much about Bangalore traffic and when I see on the map how little distance we really traveled from one site to the next it's amazing that we probably spend 3 or more hours of the day in the car driving from place to place it just takes a lot of time.

The next main stop was the Bangalore Palace which was started in 1862 and completed in 1944. It was bought by the Maharajah of Mysore when he lived here rather than in Mysore. It had innovations for India like a lift between the two floors. There are 35 rooms in total including the State Ballroom for receptions and parties and the main reception room where the Maharajah and his wives would receive visitors such as the ruler of the Austria-Hungarian Empire of disposed King of Spain

. The wives were of course behind screens unseen but could here what went on. We also visited the courtyard where the private bedrooms of the men of the palace lived and the female courtyard. While the Maharajah helped advance women rights including letting them vote there were still many traditional elements in how they lived.

The palace itself is beautiful but also in many places show definite signs that it needs renovation and upkeep. The fee for entry is double for foreigners and the camera fee is twice that of the admission itself. I got designated photo taker for the palace as we did not all want to pay the 650 rupees (about 14 dollars) fee. The entry fee did include an audio tour which was very helpful.

Our last main tourist stop was to see the Parliament builds but with construction and fences never got a good look at them by they were built at independence in the Indo-European Raj style. I have some pictures of that, as well as the red brick library and some street scenes of the MG Road markets in my album to show you this area but basically for us it was nice just walking an seeing all the sights and picking up a few items on MG Road. MG stands for Mahatma Gandhi by the way. Enjoy the pictures.